So take my heart for the weekend (and take it all through your life)
by blind-broccoli
Summary: Jughead and Betty try to make it work, maintaining the level of trust and friendship that lay the foundations for their relationship.


_**Chapter One**_

Betty's hands found his, interlinking their fingers as she tugged until he got the message and bent to meet her face, tilted towards the street lights in the darkening sky. Betty released one hand and let it trail up his back, pausing slightly against the ridges of the green snake insignia on the back of his inherited Serpents jacket before she continued to sweep her hand up to the hair on the back of his neck. She let her arm rest against his shoulder and she gently twisted sections of hair between her fingers, swiping her tongue along his bottom lip and deepening their kiss.

Jughead sighed into her mouth, moving his own free hand down her back before sliding it slowly up the back of her shirt. Betty shivered at the cold touch as he trailed his fingers softly up and down the bumps of her spine. She shuffled closer, wrapping both arms around his neck as she walked them slowly backwards until he was backed against the wall, under the shelter where his motorbike stood only a few feet away.

A firm, growing pressure on the knuckles where her fingers met his hand had Jughead pulling away, tilting his head slightly as he surveyed Betty's face. Betty did not open her eyes, opting instead to let her neck fall forward slightly as she avoided his gaze. It took Jughead a moment to notice the tears leaking from her eyes, even as she tugged at her hand to get him to release his grip. Jughead relaxed his fingers, moving his hands to frame her face instead. Betty continued to cry, bringing her hands up to cover his.

Taking a breath Betty opened her eyes, meeting Jughead's as she tried in vain to stop the tears. She didn't even know why she was crying, really. Mr. Andrews was going to be fine, Archie was fine, she and Jughead were fine. They were _fine_. But maybe that was the point. Betty didn't want the to be just _fine_. She wanted to go back to the trailer, before the Serpents, when her biggest worry had been her mother tracking her down and somehow knowing that she and Jughead had been getting...familiar with each other on the counter of the trailer's kitchen.

Instead Jughead seemed to be slipping away, the leather jacket on his shoulders adding to the weight of his father's arrest, his move back to the SouthSide, his move out of Riverdale High. Betty wanted things to go back to the trailer, wanted to tell Jughead she loved him and watch his face light up, a smile overtaking his features that worked to balance out the suspiciously glassy look in his eyes as she'd pulled him down for a kiss. She wanted to go back in time, capture that moment and carry it with her, carry the closeness of that moment with her in case there was ever a time when she needed to feel loved, feel secure in their relationship.

A time like now.

Betty didn't say anything as she moved her hands from Jughead's to grip the lapels of his jacket, digging her nails into the worn leather the same way she frequently reverted to digging them into the palms of her own hands. She was sure she was creating little dents in the fabric with her grip as she let her eyes drift away from Jughead's landing instead on a crack in the weathered brick wall behind his back. Betty traced the crack with her eyes, following its path as it weaved its own path along the wall, separating out into smaller branches and back in to the one bigger crack, eventually coming to a stop as it met the corner.

She could feel Jughead's eyes one her, patient as ever as he waited for her to form some semblance of clarity through the whirlwind of her, at times, consuming thought process.

"Promise me…" Betty trailed off, forcing her gaze away from the crack separating the different bricks on the wall, somehow managing to isolate the most worn down on one side, while beyond the other side were the still rough but more acceptably weathered stones. Shaking her head Betty continued, " Promise me that you'll come to me, Jug. I know everything is changing, not just for us. Archie's dad just got _shot,_ this is _Riverdale!_ A year ago this town was straight out of a commercial for the perfect place to raise a family! Now there's a gunman on the loose! I just….I need to know that whatever happens, you won't push me away. "

Jughead opened his mouth to reply, his tongue curled with the assurances he was sure she wanted to hear. The look on her face made him pause. There was something in her eyes, something in the waiver of her voice that persuaded him to take a minute to really consider what she was saying.

Of course things were changing, a blind person could see that. Jason Blossom's death had awakened something in the minds of the people of Riverdale. The 'town of pep' was no longer, no matter how desperately certain people tried to cling to the facade. People were beginning to realise that things could happen _in_ Riverdale, by the _people_ of Riverdale. Not all bad things could be segregated neatly into a box labelled 'South Side'.

Hell, disregarding every other shitty thing going on in Riverdale regarding a madman with a gun, crazy parents, and a town Mayor determined to blame everything on the Southside Serpents, Jughead's life was being irrevocably altered. His dad was in prison, no word on when (or if) he was ever going to make it out. His mother had whisked his sister off to Toledo and apparently written him off as a lost cause, if his failed attempt to visit them after FP's initial confession was an indication. He was moving in with a foster family. A foster family that lived on the Southside. A foster family, on the Southside, meaning the inevitable switch out of Riverdale High and into Southside High.

A move away from Betty.

Jughead was absolutely sure of only a few things. One of those things, the most important, were his feelings for the girl standing in front of him, green eyes unguarded as she awaited his response. He had never felt, never _expected_ to feel the intensity of the feelings that he felt for Betty. The perfect girl next door, his best friend's other friend; in other words, untouchable, unattainable, practically walking around with a golden halo fixed above her head flashing the words "Look but do not touch".

And she was perfect. But everyone's perceptions of perfection were different. Most of the town saw the pastel sweaters, the tight blonde ponytail, the perfect grades, and they thought, " Yeah, that's Betty Cooper alright, the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect girl next door."

Jughead saw determination as she tightened her ponytail on the steps of The Sisters of Quiet Mercy. He saw her fear, her desperation to help her sister, to help the whole goddamn town. He saw her heart shatter, felt his own hurt as she tried to keep herself from falling apart as her dreams disintegrated around her. He witnessed the beginning of her new dreams. The friendship she'd cultivated with Veronica, the support she'd given to him and his father time and time again, her unwavering faith in an eventual happy ending.

The bloody, crescent scars littering the skin of her palms. The tears dripping in a steady stream onto the page of her journal as she attempted to navigate the messy waters holding the feelings she had for her mother. Her smile, tired and a little crooked after a long day working in the Blue and Gold.

The way she looked the first time she told him she loved him, a memory so pure, so perfect he was afraid to describe it, sure any words he used would feel inadequate.

He raised one hand to the side of her face, brushing his thumb lightly over the purple bruises blossoming as bags under her eyes.

"Betty Cooper, I love you. I meant what I said. We're in this together. We...we'll figure it out, okay? I can't promise we won't have our moments," Jughead paused, remembering the look in her eyes as he'd shrugged on the leather jacket that fit him like a second skin.

"I can't promise it's gonna be easy. Things rarely are, you and I both know that. But I _can_ promise to try. I _can_ promise that you can always talk to me, and I know I can always talk to you. Things are going to be different, we can't deny that. But different doesn't have to be bad, okay?"

Betty's eyes filled with tears at his words. Nodding every few seconds from practically the beginning of his impromptu speech she leaned in to kiss him, sweetly, slowly, savoring every moment.

Pulling away but staying close enough that their noses brushed, Betty murmured, "Juggie, I love you . I love _you._ I saw your face when you put on that jacket. I see how comfortable you are wearing it now. You don't have to pretend with me. I'll support you, whatever you have to do, even if it means that you get involved in something you never imagined you would be. I'll be here." Despite the fact that it was Betty who broached the topic, Jughead couldn't deny the relief he felt about the fact that they'd finally spoken, at least a little bit, about one aspect of his life that seemed certain to change.

They moved simultaneously, arms around each other's backs as they hugged. Betty rested her cheek against Jughead's chest as he bent his neck until his chin was a weight on top of her head. Eyes closed they clung to each other, both wishing they could pause time and remained wrapped in the other's embrace forever.

After what felt like seconds but in reality had stretched onto several minutes, Betty and Jughead stepped back. This was the last time they'd see each other for awhile and they wanted to savour the moment.

Betty pulled out her phone to ring her mom while Jughead straddled his bike, watching her with a lightness he hadn't expected to feel considering he'd just spent the last few hours sitting with his childhood best friend while they waited for news regarding the bullet wound his dad had received from a masked gunman only hours earlier. Before getting into her mom's car Betty met his gaze with a smile, a promise shining in the depths of her eyes that Jughead took with him as he ignored the disapproving look of Alice Cooper and sped out of the car park, back towards the South Side that he'd worked so hard to distance himself from.

" _Don't let go."_ A throwback to the past, a time when the words held a different sentiment, said for an entirely different reason. They remained apt.

" _I won't."_ A promise, a thousand things agreed in two words. A smile, a bounce of a blonde ponytail and the possibility of embracing life as it came with the person he loved at his side.


End file.
